International Child Neurology Associaton
Newsletter September 2009
This edition of the Newsletter has been delayed to include details of the ICNA Executive Board Meeting held in Kyiv, Ukraine on 8-9 September, 2009. Some important changes to the electoral process were agreed upon, and it is hoped that the ICNA Membership will endorse these to produce a more equitable electoral process.
This is the third edition of the Newsletter to be distributed electronically via email and ICNApedia, and not by paper copy. I wrote letters last time to a small number of members who did not have email addresses, offering to send paper copies but none requested these. If you are aware of any members who cannot access the Newsletter, please inform me on their behalf. Our list of emails is at times incorrect, and it is vital that you notify the Treasurer or me if you change your address or if you fi nd you can access this only by ICNApedia.
I remain committed to publishing details of all National and Regional Conferences and Activities. Please inform me of any such matters. There is an excellent article in this issue on Child Neurology in Turkey by Banu Anlar and Haluk Topaloglu.
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Ian Wilkinson
Editor
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In this issue
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CHARLES RJC NEWTON
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 The International Child Neurology Association was founded in 1973 to
improve the care of children with neurological disorders worldwide,
promote training in child neurology, and support research and
international cooperation.
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John H. Menkes
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Three cities have shaped my life: Vienna, Dublin, and
Jerusalem. I was bom in Vienna, the offspring of four generations of doctors. My father
and grandfather were graduates of the University of Vienna. My great granduncle
was said to have been a "Feldscher" in the Austrian army, a title that designates
a surgeon of sorts. This probably meant that he
repaired gun shot wounds and fractures and perhaps did
some bloodletting. I recall quite a number of stories my
father and grandfather told me about their teachers, and they
involve some of the greatest names in medicine.
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Administrator
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In the late 1960s, a child neurologist from the Free Uni-versity of Brussels, Belgium, Dr. Sabine Pelc (1921–1989),
(Fig. 1) perceived the need for a world-wide forum for neurologists
whose focus was the care of children with neu-rologic conditions. In
order to fill this need, she set about visiting various European and
American countries in order to identify other child neurologists. I met
her in 1969 when she visited the Neurological Institute of Columbia
Presby-terian Medical Center in New York, where the National Institute
of Neurologic Diseases and Blindness of the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) had supported a training program for child neurologists
since 1956 under the direc-torship of Dr. Sidney Carter. She had
already identified a number of fully trained child neurologists in
Europe, Japan and Latin America before coming to the USA.
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Curatolo P
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Everything started in the late 1960s, when Dr Sabine Pelc,a child
neurologist from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, realized the
need to establish a worldwide forum for physicians interested in the
care of children with neurologic conditions.
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Paolo Curatolo
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In the last decade, child neurology has made remarkable advances, particularly in the fields of molecular neurobiology and neuroimaging diagnostic techniques. These advances are continuing at a rapid and ever-accelerating pace.1 Now communication technology allows the scientific community to interact quickly and easily. An effective way for child neurologists to keep up-to-date is to become a member of a scientific society and attend annual scientific meetings where new ideas are discussed. There are at present regional and continental child neurology societies almost everywhere in the world. Why then does the International Child Neurology Association (ICNA) exist in such an interconnected and globalized world? What is its role, its contribution, its importance?
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Di Rocco C
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The significance of an international society.
Childs Nerv Syst. 1996 May;12(5):234-41
Author: Di Rocco C
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Steven Leber and Kenneth Mack
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The Internet is an increasingly popular
information source and means of communication. Health information is a
particular draw, with 43% of Internet users utilizing it for this
purpose [1]. Use by medical personnel has also become increasingly
popular. For example, virtually all US academic medical center
libraries have Internet connections [2]. In 1998, over half of Canada's
physi¬cians used e-mail regularly [3]. Continued growth is expected as
younger physicians comfortable with use of the Internet replace those
older physicians less likely to do so [4]. A wide variety of Web sites
and e-mail groups may be of bene®t to physicians and patients
[5.,6,7,8.,9] for recent reviews relevant to pediatric neurology. A
number of recent publications address both the promise and potential
hazards of clinical use of the Internet. (Article originally published in Current Opinion in Neurology 2000, 13:147±153)
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Robert Ouvrier
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 The International Child Neurology Association (ICNA) was founded in 1973. Its fundamental mission is to improve the neurological care of children. ICNA’s main strengths are its global spread and the excellence, enthusiasm, and expertize of its membership. It is truly international, with members in 73 countries. The history of ICNA has been previously addressed by Dr Isabelle Rapin and by Dr Paolo Curatolo.
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